Artists Books

When you start out in bookbinding, you usually use blank white paper. Your first, second, and maybe even your third book are all empty pages waiting to be filled. Now be honest with me: how many of you have ever actually written anything in those books?

My recent visit to the National Museum of Contemporary Art (MNAC) in Bucharest, Romania, had made me muse on what exactly the book is as a medium. There are purists who would tell you that codex (with some basic alterations) is the only valid format. In the modern world of electronic media, this view seems to me a bit narrow. Even more, if you consider the long and diverse history of the book, you will see that codex may be a prominent format today, but it is only a small part of all of the invented book formats.Continue reading →